Vatican City, Aug 29, 2019 / 12:15 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, former prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches and a long-time Vatican diplomat, died at his home in the Vatican Aug. 29 at the age of 95.
Silvestrini served in the d… […]
Mombasa, Kenya, Aug 29, 2019 / 11:10 am (CNA).- Ahead of a papal trip to Africa, the “popemobile” – the vehicle in which Pope Francis will travel – has been shipped from Kenya to Mozambique, the first stop on the pope’s six-day swing through three African nations.
The “popemobile” is the same one the pontiff used during his 2015 visit to Kenya. It was shipped by sea from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on Aug. 17, to Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique.
Fr. Benjamin Maswali, apostolic administrator to Kenya’s military ordinariate, told ACI Africa that the vehicle was inspected by Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, before it was authorized for shipment.
The vehicle was repainted and its seat covers were replaced before it was shipped.
Archbishop Bert van Megan, apostolic nuncio to Kenya, told ACI Africa that Vatican police contacted his office in June about having the “popemobile” shipped to Mozambique.
Archbishop van Megan told ACI Africa that because of the unique aspects of a papal trip, the pope’s vehicle, “must be relatively high so everyone can see the Holy Father when touring through the streets of the city.”
“It should be stable, sturdy and fast in case of an emergency,” the nuncio said, adding that the vehicle “needs to have the necessary protection against wind and rain.”
He confirmed that the car being temporarily transferred to Maputo, a modified Isuzu pickup truck, “met all the special requirements that a ‘popemobile’ needs” including being “light and friendly in design.”
“It should therefore come as no surprise that the team of the Vatican, preparing the papal visit, came up with the idea to use the same vehicle for the papal visit in Mozambique as well,” Archbishop van Megen said.
After it is used by the pope, the “popemobile” will be returned to Kenya, where it will be kept in storage for future papal trips to Africa.
A version of this story was initially reported by CNA’s sister agency, ACI Africa. It has been adapted by CNA.
Richmond, Va., Aug 29, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- A Democratic Party activist with a history of anti-Catholic and other bigoted social media posts has resigned from Virginia Council of Women after her appointment prompted outcry from Catholics.
Gai… […]
In years gone by church-state conflicts in America commonly focused on the first of the First Amendment’s two religion clauses: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Tussles over public funds for […]
Denver, Colo., Aug 29, 2019 / 03:30 am (CNA).- When the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the English Carmelite, St. Simon Stock, she carried the Carmelite scapular in her hand and told him: “This shall be the privilege for you and for all the Carmelites, that anyone dying in this garment shall be saved.”
Some 300 years later, by the 16th century, a smaller version of the Carmelite scapular, known today as the Brown Scapular, was made available to lay Catholics who underwent a small ceremony and blessing that enrolled them as a member of the Brown Scapular Confraternity.
The scapular, carrying the powerful promise of escaping hell, remains a popular devotion today.
But scapulars can be awkward under certain types of clothes or simply easy to forget in the morning. So, could a well-intentioned Catholic already enrolled in the Brown Scapular Confraternity get a tattoo of the image of the scapular on their skin and receive those same graces and promises?
CNA asked; theologians and priests answered.
The short answer is: no. But, you might not want to write off tattoos completely. There is a bit more to it than that.
“It seems the answer is quite simply, no,” Dr. Mikail Whitfield, a professor of theology at Benedictine College in Atchinson, Kansas, told CNA.
The reasons for this have to do with the way the Catholic Church defines sacramentals, and the nature of tattoos, he added.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sacramentals are “sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments. They signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy.”
The Catechism adds that sacramentals “do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it.”
Sacramentals are not just objects, such as brown scapulars or Miraculous Medals, but the Catechism notes that blessings, of people, objects, meals and places, are primary among the sacramentals.
The Miraculous Medal is a sacramental inspired by the Marian apparition to St. Catherine Laboure in Paris in 1830. On one side it features an image of Mary, and on the other, a cross with an “M” underneath it, surrounded by 12 stars and the images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Canon law defines sacramentals as “sacred signs by which effects, especially spiritual effects, are signified in some imitation of the sacraments and are obtained through the intercession of the Church” (Can 1166).
“Thus, for something to be a sacramental it needs to be a common object (or act) which can act as a sacred sign, which carries some imitation of the sacraments and is set aside by the Church as a means to seek grace,” Whitfield said.
The scapular, in its smaller form used by laypeople, imitates the full-length scapulars worn by members of religious orders, is a piece of wool clothing with is a common object, and imitates the vestments worn at baptism and by priests, Whitfield said.
Tattoos, on the other hand, lack many of these elements.
“While a tattoo is a thing, it is hard to consider it an object. It is more properly an image, though admittedly images can be sacred Furthermore, it is certainly not a ‘common object’ of daily life by which we can be reminded that all the things we do in this life, even the simplest things like wearing clothing, are supposed to be ordered towards our heavenly end,” Whitfield said.
Furthermore, he added, tattoos do not seem to imitate any other sacramental aspects of the Church, and they have not been set aside by the Church as sacramentals themselves.
In fact, the Catholic Church has not made any definitive statements on the morality, or lack thereof, of getting tattoos, and so answers to questions about tattoos vary widely among theologians and priests.
“I don’t think we can talk about tattoos as something good,” said Fr. Luis Granados, D.C.J.M, who serves as the J. Francis Cardinal Stafford Chair of Moral Theology at St. John Vianney theological seminary in Denver.
“They are not ‘intrinsically evil’ but they are wrong ways of treating our body,” he said, even if a tattoo is religious in its image or messaging.
“The problem of a tattoo is…we are misunderstanding the meaning of the body,” he said. “Our body is called to be accepted as a gift from God. We can heal what is sick, but we are called to accept our body, with its characteristics.”
Adornments of the body, such as makeup or nail polish, are different because they are not permanent changes to one’s body, Granados said.
“I think the question to understand why a tattoo is wrong, is: Why do I want to get a tattoo? Why do I want to spend this money and to some extent risk my health? My body has been wonderfully created by God (Psalm 139) and it does not need my additional words. It already speaks,” he said.
However, in some parts of the world, there are deeply rooted traditions of Christian tattoos. Some Coptic Christian churches require that Christians must have a tattoo of a cross on their arm in order to be admitted into their churches.
One Coptic Christian family has been tattooing pilgrims to the Holy Land with crosses and other religious symbols as a token of their visit for more than 700 years.
Seeing a priest or a religious sister or brother with tattoos may become a more common occurrence as well, because according to a 2015 Harris Poll, a whopping 47% of millennials reported that they have at least one tattoo.
Br. MJ Groark O.F.M. Cap., is one of those millennials, and is “heavily tattooed.”
“As a millennial (and soon to be priest), I can tell you that my tattoos have been generally met with overwhelming generosity. I have a heck of a conversion story, and these are part of it,” he told CNA.
“I can tell you that God is calling many men and women from this generation into ministry, and a whole bunch of us have tattoos. It’s part of our generation’s way of expressing our lives, and increasingly, our spiritual beliefs,” he said.
Groark said that considering what he learned in his moral theology training, he thinks the morality of a tattoo lies in its meaning.
“…the human person is created imago Dei (in the image of God). We are indeed temples of the Holy Spirit. And like the temples of old, and the temples we continue to worship at, we are somehow lured by the Catholic imagination to decorate and to magnify the beauty of our spaces,” he said.
“As long as a tattoo points towards the true, the good, and the beautiful, I’m okay with it. If it does not, then there would be a question of the morality.”
Father Ambrose Dobrozsi is another tattooed millennial priest in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio. Dobrozsi told CNA that he did not think tattoos could not be considered sacramentals in the strict, proper sense of the word.
“Sacramentals, used well, keep us close to the grace of Christ given to us in the seven sacraments, and receive their graces by the authority that Christ gives his bride, the Church, when she asks for his help. When the Church asks Christ for graces, He never refuses his bride,” he said.
“This means that sacramentals only work when they are done according to the rules of the Church. If we want to ask Christ for these graces, we need to make sure we do so authentically as the Church, obediently accepting the rules she sets down. It’s clear in Canon Law that the Apostolic See alone has the authority to establish sacramentals and define the criteria for their use [c. 1167],” Dobrozsi said.
However, he added, it is possible that tattoos could be “sacramentals” in a broader sense of the word.
“A permanent image, engraved on the skin, could certainly serve as a constant, physical reminder of our new life in Christ. The image of a rosary, a cross, or other sacramental on our skin could lead us frequently to pray, to desire the seven sacraments more, and to think and act in communion with the Church,” he said.
“So, while a tattoo could not fulfill the requirements to be a proper sacramental in itself, if used in discernment and good faith it could certainly provide similar benefits and be helpful in the pursuit of holiness.”
Whitfield said that another reason that a tattoo would not be a proper scapular is because “an image is not the thing it images.”
“A picture of Michelangelo’s Pietà is not the same as seeing it in person. And standing in front of his sculpture pales in comparison to those who stood at the cross and saw Mary in person holding Christ’s lifeless body in her arms. The thing is always greater than the image. So, not only is a tattoo of the scapular not the scapular, but there’s some question of why it would be preferable; its an image of the thing, not the thing itself,” he said.
The Church already provides Catholics with an alternative to the traditional, woolen brown scapular through the wearing of a Miraculous Medal, which was approved by the Church as a substitute for the scapular in 1910.
“Why? In certain tropical and subtropical areas of the world the use of a scapular had been identified as impractical. High levels of sweat would cause scapulars to break down and deteriorate at such a rate that they were hard to maintain. Because of this, the Miraculous Medal was permitted by the Church to be worn in lieu of the scapular,” Whitfield said.
Is it possible, then that the Catholic Church could extend through its authority the same graces and promises of the scapular to a tattoo of the scapular?
“Aside from the fact that as we’ve seen, tattoos do not seem to be of the nature to appropriately be a sacramental, I have a hard time seeing a practical purpose why such an extension should or would be made,” he said.
Part of the appeal of a scapular tattoo, as previously mentioned, is its permanence – someone with a scapular tattoo would not have to remember to put their scapular back on every morning when they got dressed.
But that remembrance is important, Whitfield said, and a one-time commitment “is not how the Christian life is lived.”
“Each and every day we recommit to the God whom we love. Even those who take permanent vows must choose to live them out each day. It is a daily struggle, and choosing to affirm that wearing the scapular is as important to me today as it was yesterday is part of the very commitment that one makes in putting it on,” he said.
Ultimately, Whitfield said, because God is all-powerful, he could decide to extend the graces of the scapular to someone with a scapular tattoo, but he is not bound to do so, as they are not the same as the sacraments of the Church.
“Sacramentals are reminders and holy practices which dispose us to grace, and through them we believe that God gives further graces by the will of his divine mercy,” Whitfield said.
“(God) has not bound himself to giving graces through sacramentals in the same way he has in the sacraments. So, might he be able to will to give the same graces to someone with a tattoo as someone who wears the scapular? He certainly could, but having the tattoo doesn’t mean he will.”
Hong Kong, China, Aug 28, 2019 / 06:05 pm (CNA).- The people of Hong Kong are no strangers to political protest.
Large-scale demonstrations have rocked the island territory since early June, when an estimated 1 million marchers took to the streets, chanting and singing.
The protests began as a response to a controversial bill, put forth in February by the government of chief executive Carrie Lam, which would have allowed the Chinese government to extradite alleged criminals from Hong Kong to stand trial on the mainland.
Protestors vehemently opposed the bill, sparking the first major protest on June 6.
Though Lam suspended the bill June 15 and even apologized, protestors feared that the proposal could be reintroduced. The next day, an estimated 2 million marchers were out on the streets.
The protests have since morphed to focus on actions by police that many have denounced as police brutality, including allegations of sexual assault by police officers. Protestors also have made calls for greater democracy in the territory and for Lam’s resignation.
The New York Times has noted that these protests have eclipsed the island’s next-longest set of protests in length, as the demonstrations have been going on for 80 days— longer than the 2014 pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement,” which also saw hundreds of thousands of citizens take to the streets.
Though the protests have been largely peaceful, participants on both sides have periodically resorted to violence.
Opposing mobs of protestors have occasionally clashed, resulting in injuries, and Hong Kong’s police fired a live round of ammunition for the first time during an Aug. 26 protest. The police also used water cannons to break up protestors for the first time, after having used tear gas and rubber bullets extensively in the past, which have led to numerous injuries.
The political situation, and the implications for what could happen next, are complex, and Catholics and Protestant Christians both young and old are making their voices heard amid the protests.
What is Hong Kong’s political context?
Hong Kong is what’s known as a special administrative region, meaning it has its own government but remains under Chinese control.
Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997, when it was returned to China under a “one country, two systems” principle, allowing it its own legislature and economic system. Chief Executive Carrie Lam is herself Catholic, BBC News reports.
The territory has seen numerous protests in recent years, most significantly in 2014, wherein citizens have demanded an expansion of democracy.
The current protests are the longest and largest in the territory’s history, and are not currently showing signs of abating.
What is it like for Catholics in Hong Kong?
Life for Catholics in Hong Kong vs in mainland China is very different. The island is only about 8% Catholic, but that represents a population of over half a million.
Hong Kong has total freedom of worship and evangelization, Father Bernardo Cervellera, editor of Asia News, told EWTN News Nightly recently, because for the past 50 years it has been a “liberal society” where the decisions of the dioceses are not subject to government control.
In mainland China, by contrast, there is a long history of persecution for Christians who run afoul of the government.
The U.S. Commission on International Religion wrote in its 2018 report that last year China “advanced its so-called ‘sinicization’ of religion, a far-reaching strategy to control, govern, and manipulate all aspects of faith into a socialist mold infused with ‘Chinese characteristics.’” Christians, Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners have all been affected.
A new bishop was consecrated this week in Inner Mongolia, China, becoming the first bishop to be consecrated in the country under a new deal signed between the Vatican and Beijing. The Vatican says the deal will lead to increased freedoms for Chinese Catholics, but some critics have been skeptical.
Why are the protests so significant for Christians?
Catholic leaders in Hong Kong have expressed concern that the Communist Chinese government would use the now-suspended extradition law to further tighten its grip on free speech and free exercise of religion in Hong Kong.
“The Chinese government is suppressing the Church in mainland China, and so we are worried that when we have communication with the mainland Church, maybe one day the Chinese government will also arrest the Hong Kong people to suppress Hong Kong people,” Edwin Chow, acting president of the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students, told CNA.
The apostolic administrator of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong, has asked the government to eliminate the extradition law completely, and for an independent inquiry into the excessive use of force by the Hong Kong police.
An oft-cited case is that of Lam Wing-kee, a Hong Kong bookseller who sold books critical of China’s leadership. Authorities arrested him as he crossed the border into mainland China in 2015.
Lam fears that the law could be used to control free speech in Hong Kong through fear that the Chinese would begin— legally— forcibly removing from Hong Kong those who express views they do not agree with.
“Beijing will use this [extradition] law to control Hong Kong completely,” Lam told ucanews.com in June.
“Freedom of speech will be lost. In the past, the regime kidnapped its critics, like me, illegally. With this law, they will abduct their critics legally.”
The issue of extradition has been a contentious one in the region for a number of years, as Hong Kong has no formal extradition deal with Taiwan, Macao, and mainland China, potentially creating legal loopholes in some circumstances.
Still, advocacy groups expressed worry that the law could endanger the freedom that Christians in Hong Kong currently enjoy.
“If the latest legislation was successful, those seeking refuge and freedom of conscience in Hong Kong could face extradition back to the mainland,” International Christian Concern (ICC), an advocacy group for persecuted Christians, said June 17.
Not all Christian groups oppose the legislation, however; Peter Douglas Koon, the Anglican provincial secretary-general of Hong Kong, supports the change, and the Anglican Church in Hong Kong has stated its position as being that offenders must be brought to justice by whatever means necessary, LaCroix International reports.
What have the protestors done?
Large groups of protestors, most of them young people, have used social media and private messaging apps such as Telegram to coordinate their rallies.
Most of the protests have taken place in public places, mainly on the streets. On Aug. 23, thousands of protestors formed a giant human chain across the city.
In mid-August, thousands of protestors filled the arrival and departure halls of the Hong Kong airport, disrupting service and at one point canceling 200 flights in one day.
Though the protests have been largely peaceful, participants on both sides have periodically resorted to violence.
On July 1, the 22nd anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China, protestors broke through into the territory’s legislature building where, per The New York Times, they painted slogans on walls and defaced symbols of Chinese authority.
In mid-July, protestors and police clashed in a shopping mall. Photographs from the scene shows umbrellas scattered everywhere.
Opposing mobs of protestors have occasionally clashed, resulting in injuries, and Hong Kong’s police fired a live round of ammunition for the first time during an Aug. 26 protest. The police also used water cannons to break up protestors for the first time, after having used tear gas and rubber bullets extensively in the past, which have led to numerous injuries. Police arrested 36.
Despite the threat of violence from police and growing concern about a potential crackdown by Chinese authorities, an estimated 1.7 million people took to the streets of Hong Kong the previous Sunday for a largely peaceful demonstration in the pouring rain.
Some protestors, marching Aug. 28, focused their message on opposing alleged sexual assaults by police against female protesters, and standing in solidarity with a woman who police allegedly shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.
What are Catholics saying and doing?
The Archdiocese of Hong Kong has released numerous statements decrying the violence and urging prayers for the protestors.
Chow has called the protests a “leaderless movement,” and said that many of the Catholic students join in the protests organized by others, but also arrange Masses and prayer vigils to go long with the marches.
Henry Au, an entrepreneur who serves on the board of directors for the Irish Chamber of Commerce for Hong Hong, told CNA in August that although he has only attended two or three of the actual marches, he has been trying to materially support the protestors however he can.
He said older Catholics are less likely to go and march in the street, but they are still able to assist by providing funds to hold Masses and buy protection gear for the protestors.
Many clergy have also been supportive.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong and a sharp critic of the Vatican-China deal, celebrated Mass on June 16 at the invitation of the Federation in front of the government headquarters.
Chow told CNA he would like to see Catholics and other Christians take on a larger role in ongoing protests against the government, amid fears of a crackdown by Chinese authorities.
“For this movement, it’s a great chance for the Catholics and [Protestant] Christians to cooperate with each other,” Chow told CNA on Aug. 16.
“It’s a good chance for us to become united. Because I think for most of the Catholics and Christians, we have the same values, the same goal…so that’s why we cooperate, and I think after Christians and Catholics cooperate, or strengths, our power becomes stronger.”
While Chow said that Christians, among them Catholics, had a more major role when the protests began— leading the singing of hymns such as “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” in the streets during the protests, for example— their role has since diminished.
As the protests have continued, he said some participants became “more aggressive, more radical.” Chow said he thinks the protests have become more radical because even after two marches in June saw more than a million marchers, the government has still not answered the protestors’ demands.
Many of the protestors began to take action such as try to break into the legislative council building, or clash with police out of frustration.
What’s next?
Mainland China’s next move remains difficult to discern. After the violent Aug. 26 clash, Chinese state media used its “”harshest rhetoric yet to condemn the unrest and warned that Beijing could soon intervene, Time reports
A fleet of armored vehicles has been training at a sports stadium in Shenzhen, a mainland Chinese city not far from Hong Kong.
Chow told CNA that the next large protest is scheduled to take place Aug. 31. In addition, students are planning to strike on the first day of class, Sept. 2.
“For the Catholic groups, for the Christian groups, we have the responsibility and we have the power to calm our friends down. Because I think singing hymns, just in the beginning, it creates a peaceful atmosphere, and it has a power to keep everyone very calm. So I think we can use this when we do this again,” Chow said.
Chicago, Ill., Aug 28, 2019 / 05:30 pm (CNA).- A federal appeals court today upheld an injunction that blocks an Indiana law designed to require parental notification for minors seeking abortion.
Indiana law requires any Indiana minor seeking an abort… […]
Barcelona, Spain, Aug 28, 2019 / 05:07 pm (CNA).- Nearly 2,000 Little Sisters of the Abandoned Elderly celebrated the August 26 feast day of their foundress, Saint Teresa de Jesús Jornet. The congregation serves more than 20,000 poor, elderly re… […]
Rome, Italy, Aug 28, 2019 / 12:07 pm (CNA).- Duolingo, the popular free language learning website and app, has launched a Latin course to help its users say “salve” to Latin fluency.
“Latin has long been regarded as a ‘dead, re… […]
Seattle, Wash., Aug 28, 2019 / 11:36 am (CNA).- Social media posts made by Robert Fuller, the man whose assisted suicide was profiled Aug. 26 by the Associated Press, suggest that he scheduled his funeral with the parish days before his suicide, and th… […]
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